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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Xanadu is a word that has come up in popular culture, but Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a poem that used it back in 1798. The story I heard was that he wrote it under the influence of opium but was interrupted by some normal daily business, and when he tried to finish, the spell was gone. What he did complete became justifiably famous. Here is the first stanza.

Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.